Awards

Arts KC Inspiration Award Winner 2009

Charlotte Street Foundation Exhibiting Artist 2009, 2010

Creative Capital Professional Development Alumnus

Donations for respectful, revealing, responsible, revved-up, revolutionaries

My Recent Twitter Feed

The Olympian Conversation

What people ask when they find out I’m an Olympic athlete: The Olympian conversation

It turns out that most people who haven’t done sports all connect in the same ways to the Olympics. It turns out that I always end up having the same conversation. At first I got sick of the conversation and just . . . → Read More: The Olympian Conversation

How to cultivate fighting spirit in all parts of life

Live life from the heart – how to cultivate fighting spirit

An an Olympic Judo athlete, many times I won matches on sheer grit. It’s definitely true that sports, and most of life in general is 90% mental and 10% physical.  When I first starting developing my motivational speaker, I realized that most Judo clubs . . . → Read More: How to cultivate fighting spirit in all parts of life

Why to Vote for Combat Arts for Recovery

Wellness Wordworks and Missouri-Illinois Olympians have created a program called Combat Arts for Recovery. We are one of 12 finalists for around 55 entries to the Team USA grants competition. We can earn $12,000 to promote combat sports for mental health issues. You can vote here: http://www.facebook.com/USOlympicTeam.   Vote once per day per email address.

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Help me design Combat Arts for Recovery

Seeking feedback for program design for a marketing community of the five Olympic combat sports in Kansas City: Judo, wrestling, Taekwondo, boxing, and fencing. Prescribing sports instead of mental health interventions for kids with emotional difficulties. . . . → Read More: Help me design Combat Arts for Recovery

She’s About to Tap

I knew Pat Burris as a really fierce coach and former competitor. He used to run the US Open training camps and yell, “Let’s get ready to rumble,” in almost the same exact voice as Michael Buffer of boxing fame. The very first year that I started making junior teams I got sent to Norway . . . → Read More: She’s About to Tap

The Night I Did 1000 Pushups

When I was a sophomore or junior in high school some times I would come home from school and work out all afternoon at home. This was before I learned the overload principle, which is the idea that to build muscle, you have to work a muscle out beyond it’s normal operating capacity. The other . . . → Read More: The Night I Did 1000 Pushups